September is Here, Where's Fall?

Still waiting on cooler weather, but here's a couple of cool finishes to help get you in the Fall mood!

My Harvest Owl, stitched by Pam S.

My Spooky Star stitched by Sophie B:

July's Trunk Show is at Emily's Stitchery!!

Emily's Stitchery in Northbrook, IL is hosting my trunk show in July!  Here is a look at their awesome set of my Hoot Owls, notice those cute little feet and the fun fabric used for the welting!!

Fly Away Home!

Some cute finishes today, and a couple of them have been in the works for a long time!  Not these Cardinals, though, these were stitched by Linda C., one of the quick stitchers in this year's  Falling Star Club, and they are already finished and at home!

Love that dimensional star shape finish!

Next up are pieces from another club series, the last two Hoot Owls stitched by my friend Judy G.  These will join the other 4 already at home and will complete the set!  Congrats to Judy, they look great!!

These 3 Pumpkins and Candy Corns from my Crazy Patch club series are the first of 9 stitched by Rebecca S., and she still has 6 at the finisher to look forward to!  I can't wait to see them either, especially if they look as good as these!

Great work everyone and thanks for sharing!!

More West Coast Finishing!

Here are a couple more cute finishes for you, this is my Harvest Owl, mounted on top of a finial.  Thanks so much to West Coast for the photo! This is the first time I have seen one finished like this-- I like it!  

This is my Garden Party Heart, stitched by Sue of West Coast Finishing.  I am so happy that she finds some time to stitch for herself, and that she picked one of my designs too!  Notice that she had it beautifully framed-- if I were a finisher, I'd probably have my stuff framed too-- I mean, no one wants to do their own finishing, right? 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Judy's Owls

Judy G. has recently finished stitching all six of my Hoot Hoot! owls, using my stitch guides but her own stash threads, and they came out great, like all of Judy's stitching.  I'm so happy to show the whole set off to you here today.  Hopefully sometime soon I'll have more photos, when they come back from the finishers!

Holiday Owl

 Spring Fever Owl

Patriot Owl

Harvest Owl

Winter Snowy Owl

Spooky Owl

Threads on Parade!

The first owl in my Hoot Hoot series, the Spring Fever Owl, shipped out to participating retailers this month, and my distributor, Ruth Schmuff, was pulling the thread kits for the series.  She remarked on the variety of colors and thread types used throughout the series and I kind of wished that I was there to see all of the threads together in one big kit.  I stitched them owl by owl so I never had all the threads out at once. As I referred back to my photocopies I made of the threads I used to refresh my memory (when I am done stitching, I take all the thread and materials I used and put them on my photocopier to make a reference picture for the future, just in case there are ever any questions regarding the stitch guide) and I thought that I should have taken a regular photograph of each thread kit as well.  So I went to the thread stash and pulled the threads again and took these photos.  I think I will do this in the future for other things I stitch.  It will be a nice way to show what you will look forward to working with for each owl and it's a nice little scrapbook project for me! 

Here is the kit for the Spring Fever Owl, those shiny black dots are the big Holographic sequins for her eyes:

                           

Here is the Summer Patriot Owl kit, complete with the sequins for his star-spangled wings:

The Fall Harvest Owl features Swarovski crystal sequins and some wonderful silks and velvets:

The Winter Snowy Owl kit is very pastel so I photographed it against a darker background.  The beads in the tray are the black Delica beads I used for his eyes:

The Spooky Owl Kit has all your traditional Halloween colors, plus some rick rack for fun embellishing:

The Happy Holidays Owl is all vivid greens and pinks plus more Holographic sequins:

                         




If you are a thread-a-holic like I am, I know you enjoyed looking through all these gorgeous threads too.  Just walking into a needlework store that is well stocked with threads makes my mouth start to water and then my pocketbook start to hurt!  But I have never regretted any purchase, even when I have ended up buying duplicates of threads I already have as there is nothing like having plenty of stash at home and finding just the thread you happen to "need" for your project in the convenience of your own house!  Hopefully, those of you in the Owl Club will enjoy these new additions to your thread collection.  Until next time, Happy Stitching!

Hoot Hoot, It's Fall's Harvest Owl!

Next up in my Hoot Owl series is Fall's Harvest Owl. I used to live in the Napa Wine Valley in California and even though I've lived in the Northeast for several years now (the land of nearly mythical fall colors and deservedly so) I still think of Fall colors in the terms of the grape harvest-- wines, purples, grape-leaf greens and the like. Those are the shades that color the Harvest Owl:His eyes have been beaded in Basketweave Twill with a blend of Silk Lame' Braid and shiny hex-shape beads for an amazing sparkly and textured effect. The pupil on this owl is an eyelet of Fyre Werks and Kreinik Braid.
I didn't entirely leave out the traditional fiery orange colors of Fall-- his chest is a gorgeous Belle Soie silk mixed with Sparkle Braid. The Sprat's Heads make for very stylized "feathers" and are stitched in the most delicious shade of fuchsia Petite Very Velvet.
The wings are Fuzzy Stuff and more of the Velvet, plus I decorated them with Swarovski Crystal Sequins in Fuchsia.
Hope you are enjoying these early bird previews of the series! For even more photos of each owl, please see my EyeCandy Facebook page.